Latest research supports the work many years ago of Robert Howarth at Cornell who argued that leakages and other abnormal emissions of methane during fracking and other oil and gas operations erased the carbon advantage of natural gas over coal.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is an ocean current that redistributes heat globally and is the source of much of the ocean’s deep water. A recent study provides palaeo-oceanographic evidence that the AMOC has been anomalously weak since approximately 1850 CE compared with the preceding 1,500 years.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has a major impact on climate, yet its evolution during the industrial era is poorly known owing to a lack of direct current measurements. A recent article provides evidence for a weakening of the AMOC by around 15 per cent since the mid-twentieth century.

For much of the past 10 years beekeepers have been reporting annual hive losses of 30 percent or higher. Most research has focussed on pesticides, but a recent study of bumble bees in the U.S. has identified fungicides as a possible cause of bee decline.

Lightning is an indicator of storm intensity. In a recent study 12 years of high-resolution global lightning stroke data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) was used to show that lightning density is doubled directly over major shipping lanes.

The University of Maryland prepares a weekly set of deforestation alerts, called GLAD alerts, using Landsat imagery which identify 30-meter pixels that have recently been cleared. GLAD alerts are currently available for the 16 tropical countries including Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The first satellite images from the Sentinel-5 precursor (Senital-5P) were presented publicly December 1, 2017. The atmospheric concentration of sulphur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane satellite captured by this satellite are freely accessible so that the data will aid not only researchers but also citizens via smartphone apps and internet services.

9 million people die every year from pollution. This is 16% of all deaths worldwide and three times more deaths annually than from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. In 2015, deaths from pollution were 15 times greater than from all wars and other forms of violence globally. These findings are presented in a major report by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health released in October 2017.

Arctic sea ice extent

Daily Arctic sea ice extent

ARGO ocean buoys

Global temperature since 1850

Monthly CO2 concentration

From Our Files

A recent study presents evidence that regional warming over the Arctic Ocean can affect mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere continental weather. This study shows that there are two key Arctic regions where regional warming can induce distinguishable cold winters over northern continents. Warming over the Barents–Kara Sea region is likely to lead to East Asian cooling, whereas northern North America cooling is closely related to warming over the East Siberian–Chukchi Sea region.

A reanalysis of the effect of black carbon emissions has found that it is second only to carbon dioxide emissions in its warming impact on the climate. Together carbon dioxide, black carbon, and methane emissions represent the anthropogenic sources with the largest impact on Earth’s climate.

Approximately 800,000 years ago something changed in the Earth’s climate system that led to the climate then following a series of approximately 100,000 year cycles. Small, predictable changes in the Earth’s orbit about the Sun act as triggers for the glacial and interglacial periods, but other factors such as ice sheet volume, CO2 concentration, and biological feedback mechanisms are also involved.

There is strong evidence of marked changes in temperature extremes across the contiguous United States – extreme cold waves have become less common while extreme heat waves have become more common and heavy precipitation events in most parts of the United States have increased in both intensity and frequency. That is the conclusion of a report prepared by scientists from NOAA, NASA and other agencies.